The Wake

November 20th marks the Sixth Annual Transgender Day of Remembrance, in which all too many transgendered people are mourned as a result of hate crimes or suicide. One person a month that identifies as transgendered dies due to transgender based hate or prejudice, according to the Web site www.rememberingourdead.org. While we send our thoughts to our transgendered friends, the Day of Remembrance also serves as a wake-up call to raise awareness of, and understanding about this unique community.First, the basics. Transgender, as a definition, is one that is highly debatable. The Web site www.tsroadmap.com provides a very comprehensive inclusive definition: “An umbrella term used to describe anyone whose gender identity or expression situates them differently than the traditional gender role they were assigned at birth.” Also, to be “in transition” means a person is in …

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God. The Holidays are so dumb.I mean, I’d rather have someone tie me to a post with some of that rope that’s all “fucked up and shit” (you know the type) and shock me in the eye with a cattle prod, after – and only after (God help you if it isn’t after) – I’ve been doused with an ionized water solution. I’d rather have someone take a compact car and, using a lot of investor money, figure out how to make it fly in space. Then, I’d rather have that same compact car come hurtling down from orbit, only to smash me into the ground . . . in Death Valley. I’d rather have some kind of intelligent monkeys, from one of those labs that piss off all the animal rights people, take a …

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As the director of athletics at the University of Minnesota, I read with interest Alan Iverson’s piece regarding corporate sponsorships of Gopher athletics. I would like to offer a few of my own thoughts on this subject.Interestingly, the very first intercollegiate athletics competition, an 1852 rowing match between Harvard and Yale, was sponsored by James Elki of the Boston, Concord, and Montreal Railroad. Although much has changed since that day, to varying degrees, corporate sponsorship has always been a part of intercollegiate athletics. This presence was less obvious prior to 1980 because athletic budgets were much smaller than they are today and the corporate need was not as great. Revenue generated through ticket sales and annual university subsidies of athletics typically met the department’s needs. Since the 1980s, however, the face of intercollegiate athletics has …

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Adolf Hitler was one of history’s truly evil leaders. There is no excuse for the genocide of a race. No amount of sympathy should be given to a man with such malignant views on the world and the diverse races within it. Those who have read Hitler’s autobiography, “Mein Kampf,” have a much better understanding how such an evil can arise in a person. Although this evil exists in many, Hitler brought it to the world’s front door. Hitler accomplished a terrible, yet hugely influential feat. It is hard to imagine that Hitler was able to accomplish this feat considering his upbringing. When Hitler was young, he learned to fear his father, Alois Hitler, who was very abusive. Young Hitler witnessed his mother, Klara Hitler, beaten into submission over and over again, and Hitler …

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When I moved to Minneapolis a few years ago, something struck me as odd: there was no Ikea. Trying to furnish my fifth college apartment, it really hit me. There was no Ikea. Speaking to friends back in Los Angeles, I finally came to grips. There was no Ikea! Since my undergrad, I’d grown to know and rely on Ikea like a particle-board crutch –-keeping my place looking good and my pocket book alive. Somehow with more Scandinavians, Volvos and lutefisk than you can shake a stick at, the Twin Cities had missed out the biggest thing to come out of Sweden since the Borg. Thankfully Minnesota is Ikea-less no more. Embracing the Twin Cities, Ikea plunked down a store right by Mall of America –-which, with the light rail almost complete, is virtually a …

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On Saturday, our pigskin squad will try to best the reviled Hawkeyes in the final game of the 2004 campaign. Although a valiant effort, Minnesota has once again failed to achieve the prospect of a reputable bowl game. After a dismal loss to the Hoosiers –-one of the worst football teams in the country –- the Golden Gophers will attempt to conclude their season with dignity. I will be in attendance on Saturday, along with the usual throng of football enthusiasts, doing my best to cheer our boys to victory. In addition to spirited choruses of the “Rouser,” I will also be doing my best to ignore the pulsating McDonald’s sign and the damned American Eagle brigade that have infested the event.The corporate presence at Minnesota football games is a strain on the integrity of …

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Most would agree that college forces us to step outside our boundaries and experience new things. However, it seems that some students have sidestepped this process by joining fraternities and sororities.That’s right. If you want to opt out of experiences that tend to make peoples’ life better, go Greek! Even better, maybe you can get back what you left behind in high school.Start with something that most college students find enjoyable: making friends. Granted it takes some initiative to go out and talk to people about joining a Greek organization, but that time could also be spent making friends on your own terms. Sure, new friends will be made quickly by people who join the system, but members are relegated to spending hours upon hours with the same people, like it or not. It’s …

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Anti-corporate was SO last year™. Zealous American cultural colonization? Please. Global market domination? Are you kidding? Foreign outsourcing? More like foreign love-sourcing, commie. This isn’t your acid-mamma’s America, man. We’re living in a different world now. And socialism will only spoil the fun for everyone. Why criticize the capitalist status quo upon which this fine continent rests? You don’t want to poop on everyone’s parade, do you, token young activist? You’re a smart person. In fact, at this point, you’re probably asking yourself, “Gee Mister, you’re right. Nobody likes getting poop on themselves. But what can I do to stop myself from being just another socialist monkey?”Well, first stop questioning things so much. Come to grips with reality. Stop questioning why you are against Coca Cola®. Instead ask yourself: “Why do I like Coca Cola® …

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Hark! Hark to the wind! ‘Tis the night, they say,
When all souls come back from the far away-
The dead, forgotten this many a day!
Virna Sheard
“Hallowe’en,” 1913
Devils, demons, ghosts, the dead, the undead, and death: these are familiar characters on Halloween. Where did this fascination with death come from?As a pagan, I’m faced with mistaken impressions about my beliefs every day, but never more than at Halloween. Militant Christians regularly hand out fliers on the corner. One, to my amusement and frustration, had well-known “Satanic” images: an inverted pentagram and a goat-human hybrid. “Satanic Origins of Halloween!” spanned the top. Rubbish. Halloween practices originate from druidic rites long before Christianity — and Satan — ever existed.Christianity, and the power of the papacy, rose in the 12th century. Pagans …

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I have to let you in on a dirty little secret.I’m still voting for Rep. Phyllis Kahn, DFL – Minneapolis, in the November election. You might be thinking I’m some sort double-talking, loopy liberal whose faulty logic condones Kahn’s July campaign literature heist while adamantly opposing the injustices of an increasingly conservative politics in Minnesota.“You’re still voting for Phyllis Kahn?” you might say incredulously. “How can you possibly explain that?”Well, dear reader, here’s how: Phyllis Kahn’s record proves that she is one of the most rockin’ politicians in the state of Minnesota. Kahn is currently serving her 16th term in the Minnesota Legislature, and during her time in Congress, she has authored some of Minnesota’s most important laws regarding public health, labor, environmental safety and women’s rights. And she still finds time to run the …

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“And from among you there should be a party who invite to good and enjoin what is right and hinder the wrong, and these it is that shall be successful.” These profound words seem as though they could come from the memoirs of some great American philosopher or one of our nation’s founding fathers. However, these words come from no other text than the Islamic holy book, the Quran. This commandment serves as a fundamental principle that every Muslim should incorporate into his or her life. These words also form the basis for my decision to cast a ballot in 2004.Over the past four years, I have transitioned from a time when I was too young to vote or even care about the presidential ticket, to a situation where I would be not only doing …

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After 9/11 I went through a radical change in my outlook on life. Those attacks were the direct cause of the first part of my change –- the realization that people are fundamentally responsible for their own actions. I was no longer willing to make excuses for people and no longer saw people as groups, but as individuals. Group identities remove individual responsibility.The last part of this change was the extension and application of the first. I used to be a Socialist because I thought that it was just. I thought that people deserved to have their needs taken care of if they were unable to do it themselves and that the rich had a duty to the poor.The expectation of responsibility and the justice of Socialism cannot coexist within the same system …

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My name is Amanda Hutchings and I am asking for your support for my run for the Minnesota State House. I am a fourth year student here at the University of Minnesota, studying political science, history, and French. Throughout my years here at the university and as a citizen of district 59B, I have consistently been active with politics and its processes at the local, state, and federal levels. I hope this column gives the voters my positions and serves as a reference when voting this November. Higher education: State funding for public institutions of higher education must be protected. It is the state’s partial responsibility to make certain that its own educational institutions are both quality and affordable for its citizens. The universities, in turn, must keep their spending at a level that …

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On September 11, 2001 I lost my faith in the shiny, happy people. Before that day I was a believer in Chomsky and Zinn. I believed that violence was never the answer, and I believed in the fundamental sameness of people. Before that day, I thought that the only thing keeping people from true fraternity was economics — namely, the system that was set up by those with money to keep those without from having or gaining their own. I believed that if people were left to their own devices, they would naturally fall into systems of cooperation and mutual respect.This all changed when I turned on CNN to see United Flight 175 crash into the second tower of the World Trade Center. I saw the decision made by a …

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Happy presidential election, college liberal –- this is your shining moment! Soon you will cast your hard-earned vote and oust that tyrant from his high throne. I can see the puffs of smoke streaming from your ears when you think about Dubya…take it easy! I know he waged war against a random country, proclaiming victory overseas while flag-draped coffins kept coming back home. If that weren’t enough, he has demonized America in the eyes of many of our allies, sounding a “with us or against us” mantra all the while.I don’t know about you, but I can’t take another four years of Bush!That’s why I’m voting for a candidate that wants our troops out of Iraq! I’m supporting someone who advocates health care for every American! Come November, I’m voting for someone who will fight …

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